In the prior art, racks for displaying and dispensing filamentary material commonly consist of frame members which support one or more horizontal axles upon which are rotatably mounted a plurality of reels carrying the filamentary material to be displayed and dispensed.
It is to be understood that in this specification and in the appended claims, the term "filamentary material" is intended to mean and to include all such things as rope, cord, wire rope, electrical wire, chain and other material of that general kind that is commonly supplied on reels having a core and a pair of opposed circular flanges.
The display and dispensing racks of the prior art suffer from a number of disadvantages.
First, in a rack which supports a plurality of reels upon a common axle, replacement of any one reel requires the removal of the axle from the stand so that the reel may be slid axially off the axle for removal. If an axle carries, for example, three or five such reels of filamentary material and one of the central reels is empty, the entire axle must be removed, one or more outer but still full reels must be removed in order to gain access to the empty reel. Such full reels are, quite frequently heavy with the result that a display stand may be left with one or more empty reels until personnel from the stockroom are available to replace the empty reel with a full reel. Such a practice, of course, results in lost sales and in customer dissatisfaction.
Second, a display stand which supports a plurality of reels upon one or more common axles makes no provision for neatly locating the free end of a filamentary material carried by the reel with the result that the assortment of ropes, wires and the like frequently hang down from the device in a tangled, disorderly array. This makes dispensing of the material awkward and presents an untidy appearance which is detrimental to the image presented by such users as a retail organization and, more importantly, may present a hazard both to store personnel and to transient customers.
Thirdly, display and dispensing racks of the prior art frequently make no provision for measuring the length of the filamentary material which is to be dispensed and sold. It is common practice in some retail organizations for the clerk to measure the length of a piece of rope, for example, by laying it out on the floor and using the twelve inch floor tiles as measuring units to determine the length of the material requested by a customer. Such measurements are frequently done in a rather sloppy and inaccurate fashion and, in order to ensure customer satisfaction, a request for a length of, say, ten feet of material is frequently met by cutting and selling a somewhat longer length for the ten-foot price. Such a practice, over a period of time, results in a significant loss of revenue to the detriment and disadvantage of the retail organization.
It is, accordingly, an object of the present invention to provide a display and dispensing rack for filamentary material in which the disadvantages enumerated above are overcome.
First, individual reels of filamentary material are supported by their flange edges upon roller bars so that any reel may be readily removed from the rack independently of any other reels. As a result, an empty reel can be readily removed and replaced by a full reel as soon as the contents of the reel have been exhausted.
The display and dispensing rack of the present invention provides a neat and tidy appearance, provides guides and locating apertures for the free ends of the material to be dispensed so that there is no tangle or hanging material and so that hazards to personnel and transient customers are avoided.
Thirdly, the display and dispensing rack of the present invention provides an integral counter and measuring device by means of which the requested length can be accurately measured and cut in a manner that avoids the hazardous practice of laying the material out on the floor and overcomes the inaccuracy inherent in that practice.